Posted tagged ‘tv shows’

Netflix’s original dramedy series Master of None is one of the best shows currently airing and season 2 definitely brings back everything you enjoyed about the first season. The show repeats a lot of the same kind of plots dealing with friendships and relationships in the life of struggling actor Dev (Aziz Ansari). Having said that, this season throws a few changes our way when it comes to style.

The season premieres with a bang with the entire first episode taking place in Italy. Writer/director Aziz Ansari really emphasizes the old-fashioned, simplistic feel of Italy in this one, partly with the clever choice to film the whole episode in black and white.

We get a lot of interesting experimentation this season. One episode is presented from the point of view of three separate never before seen characters who just happen to live in New York City. And in another that may have just been the greatest of the season, we get a story that takes place over about 20 years of Thanksgivings with Dev and his childhood friend Denise.

As far as running plotlines throughout the season go, the most intriguing of them was likely the potential romance Dev has with his friend Francesca (Alessandra Mastronardi). Mastronardi plays the role very convincingly. There’s a lot of good chemistry between the two of them. And it’s easy to see why the characters care for one another.

The best of the episodes that focuses on this would have to be the hour-long special “Amarsi Un Po,” which actually plays out more like a movie. The episode even begins with its own unique opening credits sequence with the cast and crew’s names displayed over establishing shots of New York City.

Speaking of good performances from new characters, two-time Emmy Award winner Bobby Cannavale gives a really fun portrayal as Chef Jeff, Dev’s new boss, and eventual friend. Overall, you get pretty much the same level of quality this season that you got from the first season. It’s all definitely worth checking out.

Imagine if you took Family Guy and American Dad!, meshed them together, and took out anything that made those shows likable. You’d have FOX’s new animated series Bordertown.

Okay, to be fair, I’m just judging this based on the first episode. Maybe it’ll improve as the show continues. But honestly, I’m not sure if I plan on coming back again to watch.

So Bordertown focuses on two Southwestern families living on the border between Mexico and California. Our protagonist Bud Buckwald is a middle-aged man and an open racist. This is where a lot of the humor in the show comes from.

And I often really like this kind of racial humor. All in the Family did it well. South Park has been doing it well for years. Family Guy and American Dad! have also done it well in the past. The problem here is that this episode doesn’t really do much new with this kind of comedy. And it’s not really going to be that funny if we’ve heard these jokes before.

So the main plot of this episode is that Bud’s daughter Becky gets engaged to J.C., the son of the Mexican family living next door. And of course, Bud isn’t happy with this and does everything he can to try and stop it.

But what else doesn’t work about this pilot? Well, as you might have been able to tell by the above photo, the animation here just has a very unappealing look to it. I feel like they animators went out of their way to make everything to look as ugly and bland as possible.

The voice acting isn’t very good either in my opinion. Most of of the characters voices are just really annoying to listen to.

Then there’s the characters themselves. One problem I have is that some of them are kind of underdeveloped, at least at this point in the series. In particular, I’m talking about Bud’s wife. I feel like I know hardly anything about her. Hopefully she’ll get some more development in later episodes.

Is there anything here to enjoy? Well, despite the comedy not being very good overall, this episode did get a decent amount of chuckles out of me. Some of the jokes are a little clever and amusing. And there were a couple of genuinely funny jokes, mainly towards the end of the episode. But overall, I just didn’t like this very much.

The Emmy Awards is an extremely tough awards show to predict. You think you see an obvious winner among the nominees, but then they totally throw you for a loop and pick a winner that may seem completely random. But I’m going to give it a shot anyway.

So a little while back I read this article – http://www.buzzfeed.com/perpetua/netflix-is-disappointing. And it got me thinking, what are some of the great things that Netflix actually does offer? I came up with a few, so I thought I’d share. So without further adue, here are 5 great things on Netflix that you might not have already checked out.

**IN ALPHABETICAL ORDER**

1. Barton Fink

The Coen brothers. John Turturro. John Goodman. Tony Shalhoub. How could you go wrong with a team like that?